New Jersey: ‘Surrender Your Guns Or Become A Criminal!’

New Jersey, not exactly known for giving the people living within its borders freedom, has just passed a law that declares all guns which hold more than ten rounds of ammunition “illegal.” The state is ordering people to surrender their guns or become criminals.

The Garden State has now tightened the gun already strict gun control laws. The new legislation gives citizens 180 days to surrender all firearms and magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. If a person should dare to keep their own property, now declared “illegal contraband,” they will be treated as criminals.

The new law comes courtesy of Assembly Bill 2761, which was recently passed by the state and signed into law by New Jersy’s governor Phil Murphy. The bill’s purpose is to reduce “maximum capacity of ammunition magazines to 10 rounds,” and the text states that citizens will have 180 days to comply. It gives those who own any “contraband” options for “surrender” of their own property:

Render the semi-automatic rifle or magazine inoperable or permanently modify a large capacity ammunition magazine to accept 10 rounds or less;

Voluntarily surrender the semi-automatic rifle or magazine

Not exactly good choices for those newly declared criminals. The law also states that the “voluntary surrender” process is quite difficult. According to Free Though Project, citizens who choose to “voluntarily surrender” their newly illegal firearms and magazines to police must jump through hoops to avoid being declared a criminal at the time of surrender. The law states that in order to surrender the weapons without being convicted of a crime, the citizens must give written notice, which includes “the proposed date and time of surrender,” and the weapons must be given to the superintendent or the chief of police in the municipality in which the individual lives.

This law will go into effect immediately with only 180 “grace period” days for citizens to decide what to do with their morally acquired property. Current or retired law enforcement personnel are exempt from the law, as are those who legally own a firearm with an unmodifiable fixed-magazine capacity of up to 15 rounds as long as they register the firearm with their local police.

“[This law] turns one million people into criminals with the stroke of a pen, limits self-defense, and takes away property lawfully acquired. Buy it yesterday, ban it today, go to prison tomorrow—it’s the Jersey way, and the goal of our lawsuit is to boot this law, which makes no one safer, into the trash heap of history where it belongs,” said Scott Bach, The Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Club’s executive director, toldthe Washington Free Beacon. The group will fight back against the new law because they believe it will be “ignored by criminals and madmen,” and will only affect the law-abiding gun owners who are turned into criminals because of its existence.

“Our laws will continue to be able to reach only so far as our own borders,” New Jersey governor Phil Murphy said. “It is not enough … Let there be no doubt our work is far from done.”